On Editing

[elfhawk]

So I've got 50000 words of text I need to proofread. I took December off because by the end of NaNoWriMo, I basically had the entire thing memorized and couldn't see typos because I knew what the sentence was supposed to say. Carmen happily helped out with a lot of the grammar stuff that I would've spotted during the proofreading, so I changed my

Comments

Part 3, and Tiny Story (cont'd)

[carmenwoods]

The smell of death made them easier to find, but Carmen had merely marked the spot to start digging them up once the survivors were found.
(Does Carmen have a sort of rudimentary communication with Snow? Otherwise how would she have known where the sun-knights were buried without a sense of smell herself? Unless there was a limb or blood sticking out or something.)

There was something she needed to see before going to the other half-elf's side. ...
“This has not been a good day,” Petra said from where she sat, eyes on the unconscious half-elf. “Not for any of us.”
(I know it's hard to avoid replications of descriptor terms, and this is probably very minor overall. I just can't help thinking that something like "to her cousin's side", or "the unconscious woman" might reduce the doubling up of "half-elf" here.)

“I think the knights finished their work before the roof collapsed on them. It isn't giving off the same creepy feeling that it was when we arrived.”
(How do we know that the prisoner hasn't escaped, instead? Eeeeek.)“This is

Re: Part 3, and Tiny Story (cont'd)

[elfhawk]

Carmen and Snow do body language well. Snow is passing along the message that it smells like death. Or possibly that the scents are not of friends.

Changed the first to cousin. It would be weird in the sentence with Petra.

It is a mystery! But there are just the usual 'evil was here' creepy vibes and not 'evil sees you and hates you and will destroy you all' creepy vibes. Because the wards have been fixed. But there is no telling what has snuck out!

Changed second to cast. Divine invocations are far too involved to just say cast.

I think I like 'of' more than 'about'.

second read-through

[carmenwoods]

It's shocking just how much I notice every new time I read over it. I think part of it might be that I keep forgetting to take it slow and watchful - I keep getting all excited about the story and reading faster so I miss things.

Anyway, I haven't gotten all the way through part 1 yet this go-round. Sleepy. A little less than a third of the way.

===

The catacombs underneath the main temple of Jadus in Khorevail were cool, damp, and lifeless. Once a week, one luckless squire was sent to inventory its dark vaults.
(Dark vaults of the catacombs, or dark vaults of the temple? In the first case, should be "their".)

Don’t want nothing to look out of place, and they walk by everything regularly.
(I'm probably beginning to get carried away. But with the accents you've given these two, "regularly" just seems too well conjugated. My brain wants to make it "regular" or "regular-like". I'll stop that now.)

It was a dark room, the dim light coming in from the gap between the door and floor only highlighting the deep shadows in the tiny room

Re: second read-through

[elfhawk]

I've always seen catacombs as one of those 'always plural' words, like pants. How about I swap 'its' out with 'the' and just ignore ownership of the vaults

second read-through (cont'd)

[carmenwoods]

She had moved the seating pews out of the way of the door that led to the great stairwell leading downwards into the depths of the temple catacombs in hopes that when the trolls started fleeing back to the tunnels, they would move as quickly through this room as possible and not notice the single human standing in the center of all the light.
(This wasn't something that Petra had already thought of ahead of time? She was pretty much all over that.)

One veered off and headed in her direction, his eyes narrowed, ... It looked a great deal like a thorn bush given humanoid form. ... an eight-foot troll bulldozing its way through pews towards her. ... hardening the air in front of him ... The troll at her barrier quickly gave up as fire danced towards it from pew to pew.
(Pronoun choice for the troll fluctuates quite a bit here.)It was uncomfortable, and no one had known how long it would take before they received evidence that their work had gone well. She’d rather the time spent getting in and out of it than an unknown amount of time

Re: second read-through (cont'd)

[elfhawk]

Petra couldn't actually move furniture. That would be noisy and draw attention to that room. Odette could cast all the silencing spells she liked on the furniture

Re: second read-through (cont'd)

[carmenwoods]

I think that was the only place you had the pronouns mixed together - the fight scene was consistently "it".

Yeah, that tidies up the Carmens nicely imo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbGkxcY7YFU

second read-through (last part)

[carmenwoods]

Not much to point out here, I think these were the first ones I proofread, going backwards, so they've already had one more pass than the first bits did anyway. Looks real good overall imo!

=====

It was embroidered with a large gold starburst in the center.
(The holy symbols later are sunbursts - is this just a different rank symbol, or is it meant to be a sunburst too?)

“This is why I must send word back to Khorevail that something is wrong with one of the investigators.”
(So did Yseult manage to get that letter sent before leaving Mirrimar? Raving audiences want to know!)

The words seemed to put a fire back into the tall woman's eyes. “Setting a temple to rights is precisely why I came here.
(So Khorevail being basically like Rome is why they would send whoever they wanted instead of having someone from within Telubra take care of it then, is that right? Can clergy of Jadus from anywhere travel through the civil war zones relatively unbothered by soldiers? Just something I was wondering about.)“I take it he will be constantly

Re: second read-through (last part)

[elfhawk]

I like starbursts. I was possibly hungry when I wrote that line.

Yseult had the time to send the letter. A better answer is when will it arrive?

You have to remember Vister's a knight, not a priest. And not only that, a crusader. Bothering her would be suicide for anything smaller than a platoon of soldiers. Jadus is the patron of 90% of Telubra and Sundabar, so his priests- if they are wearing his colors- are left alone for the most part. Anybody caught impersonating one to escape the civil war is hung for desertion of course.

Good idea on the fidgeting. Lemme see if I can work that in somewhere.

Actually, the centimeters is the odd one out. (I wanted a small measurement. This is how evil things are!) Though using meters is a good idea. (Goes and does corrections.)

I had forgotten colt was masculine. Whoops. Athena should've known better, jeez.

Re: second read-through (last part)

[carmenwoods]

You could even use plain antiquated measurements, like "paces". Dunno what you'd use for centimeters, though. Finger-widths?

Re: second read-through (last part)

[carmenwoods]

Since actually kilometers instead of leagues might be strange.